


Dragon Age: Poison

by bioticbootyshaker



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Abuse, F/M, Gen, Healing, Rape, Slavery, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:59:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticbootyshaker/pseuds/bioticbootyshaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Fenris experiences another night of his bad dreams and memories, Isabela decides to get the truth from him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragon Age: Poison

** Poison **

 

It was the third night in a row that Fenris had awakened her with his whimpering. The first night, Isabela had let him suffer in his dreams, reminding herself of the time she had attempted to rouse a shipmate from his nightmare and almost had a dagger planted in her gut. The second night, though, she had elbowed Fenris in the side and told him to put a muzzle on it; he had blinked at her with dazed confusion and gone into an uneasy sleep.

 _This is why I never share my bed_ , Isabela thought. Of course, Fenris had seemed able to easily skirt her rules regarding sex and companionship. Sometimes Isabela would want nothing more than to toss him out into the streets and let him march his scrawny, naked ass through Lowtown and up to his fancy slice of Hightown Estates. One look into his eyes, or even just the smallest hitch in his breath as he slept, and Isabela no longer cared about her own rules. Fenris wasn’t like the other men – and even a lot of the women – that Isabela had bedded over the years. 

He was tough, sure, but there wasn’t a bloke in Thedas who didn’t consider himself tough. There was some indefinable quality about him that separated him from the rest. _He’s a glass cannon_ , Isabela would sometimes think, _Powerful as all Hell, but fragile. You could break him, ‘Bela, so be careful._

She was not a careful woman.

Everything precious seemed to break in her hands. She recalled having called Aveline a woman-shaped battering ram, but in reality, it was Isabela who didn’t quite know how to be gentle. If she had spoken of this to Fenris, he would have chuckled, and reminded her that he wasn’t, after all, made of glass. But he _was_ , and that was the terrible thing; he _was_ , and Isabela didn’t know how to hold onto him without shattering him.

Instead of letting him whimper undisturbed or sending another elbow into his side, Isabela curled herself against Fenris’ back and pressed a kiss against his pointed ear. His entire body was trembling, and while Isabela could see that his face was wet with tears, she pretended not to notice. Oddly enough, Isabela had spoken with Hawke about Fenris’ nightmares. Despite Hawke and Fenris’ history, the man had been more than willing to share his own experience with her. “He remembers too much,” Hawke said, “I wonder how he’s survived this long when he’s caused so much pain from a lover’s touch. But I don’t think it’s every lover that makes him remember; just the ones that he makes the mistake of falling in love with.”

After that, Hawke had said nothing else on the matter. He carried a torch for the elf even after so much time had passed. Isabela hadn’t wanted to rub salt into wounds that were still so fresh. She was a bitch sometimes, it was true, but she could never be accused of being cruel.

“Fenris,” Isabela whispered, “Fenris, it’s all right.”

He came awake slowly, fighting against the dream – the memories – that wanted to keep him down. For a long while he could only lie there, staring out into the darkness and feeling the warm, solid weight of Isabela against his back. When it seemed he would remain that way all night, Fenris said, “It hurts me.”

Three words had never affected Isabela as much as those three did. She suddenly wanted Danarius right in front of her, that Magister bastard, so she could plant a dagger in his eye and ram her boot halfway up his ass. Isabela liked to pretend that she had no strong opinions one way or another on the whole mage/templar business, and in most cases that was true. When it came to Fenris, she had a strange, disconcerting blackness in the corner of her heart for mages. 

No person deserved to suffer for being who they were. No person deserved to be caged. If she thought too deeply on how much Fenris must have endured under Danarius’ heel, she found herself a changed woman, a woman she no longer recognized. That was what it was to love, she guessed. It was not making love and holding someone in the night when their nightmares grew too dark and dangerous for them to face alone. It was taking someone’s darkness into _yourself_ and telling them that you would hold it for them; that if they could no longer stand it, you would stand it _for_ them.

The idea that she loved Fenris scared her, but it also made her smile. She had certainly come a long way from the widowed woman with a Crow in her bed. While that girl would always remain with her, Isabela understood that she could be more; if she allowed herself to be.

“Tell me what happened?” 

Maybe she had meant the words to come out as a statement, something that Fenris couldn’t have backed away from or side-stepped. Instead, Isabela sounded desperate, wanting so badly to ease Fenris that it hurt her down to her bones.

“You know what happened,” Fenris said. He sounded sullen – nothing new there – but he also sounded defeated. Isabela had never heard him sound like that before, and it made her uneasy. “You know what the bastard did to me.”

“I know that he hurt you, that he made you do terrible things. I know that he treated you like an animal. What I don’t know is what is really bothering you. What I don’t know is just that one thing you keep hidden, even from yourself.”

Isabela surprised herself with her boldness. Usually she was more than willing to let the issue drop, to focus her attention on less somber things. But if Fenris wanted to leech whatever dark thing there was inside of him – and Isabela believed he _did_ – he would have to tell her. He would have to tell _someone_.

“Is it not enough that I’ve told you what I have?” Fenris asked. There was venom in his voice, but it wasn’t for her. No, he could never truly be angry at the woman curled up against his body. He was angry at Danarius, angry at himself for still holding on after all the years that had passed. Angry, mostly, that he was forced to live in a world that demanded he be a slave forever. It never mattered how far Fenris ran, or for how long, he was always right back where he started. Afraid, alone, and desperate for something he couldn’t even name.

Isabela said nothing. It was strange for her to bite her tongue and let silence permeate the air, but she knew if she allowed Fenris any kind of wiggle room, he would find a way to avoid the subject, to avoid whatever terrible poison was running through his veins. She meant to expose that poison and rip it out of him if she could. The process might hurt him, might hurt him quite a bit if she was being honest, but it was necessary. 

“It is not just the beating,” Fenris whispered. “The pain of that… I could bear it. I bore it well, all things considered. It was not just the ways he touched me, the ways he violated me… It wasn’t the sins I was forced to commit, or the people I was forced to murder or even the way that, no matter how I tried to pretend, I was his property, I was of no more import than a dusty piano in the corner; pretty, occasionally useful, but otherwise of no value. Those things I could stand, I _did_ stand. It was--“

Here was the crux of the matter, the very heart of darkness that Fenris kept hidden away. He would either expose it now, or he would keep it hidden forever. Isabela loved him, she wanted to help him, but she would not, under any circumstance, be a crutch for him. _Yes_ , Isabela thought, wanting to will Fenris on, to push him closer to that edge that there was no coming back from, _Almost there now. Almost to the point of no return. You can’t hide from me, Fenris_.

Isabela didn’t think these things with any malice. She thought them triumphantly. Just a little further and Fenris would finally, and at long last, be free. His freedom did not rest with Danarius’ death, and it would not come from the love they made in the dark; it could only come from letting go, from giving in, from pushing away everything and saying, _Yes. This was who I used to be, this is not who I am anymore._

“It was when he did nothing to me at all,” Fenris said. “The beating, the _raping_ , the horrible pain of these hideous _markings_ … At least then I was alive to him, I was present. His property or not, I was _there_. It was when I faded into obscurity, when I ceased to exist, when he looked _through_ me, that did more damage than his fists or his magic ever could. To not even be noticed, to not even be _seen_ …”

Most likely Fenris believed Isabela would laugh at him; that she would find him foolish. And at first, Isabela almost _did_ laugh, just at the horror of it all. She tried to imagine Fenris wanting Danarius’ attention, wanting his violence and his abuse, and she couldn’t. But then, she had never been a slave, she had never been under someone’s heel, she had never been made to feel like less than a person. Most likely Danarius had done those things on purpose. Most likely he had treated Fenris as less than an animal, had ignored him on purpose, and had then come to Fenris with sweet lies and tenderness. 

That was how you broke a spirit, after all. It was not through sheer force, no, it was the tenderness that was the most effective. It was the sweetness that eventually bore down into a man and made him wonder what was so wrong with himself, why he couldn’t simply be good for one who treated him so kindly. Danarius could have kicked dirt into Fenris’ eyes, he could have rubbed salt into his wounds, he could have spat on him and called him a dog – and then he could have come to him, kissed him, stroked his hair, and made Fenris believe that these things were not the acts of an owner to his slave, but the acts of a man who dearly loved another.

 _That_ had been Fenris’ life. _That_ was the poison he kept inside. _That_ was the shame he lived with every day. 

“You believe you deserved it,” Isabela said. “No matter how much you talk about Danarius needing to pay, or how you try to convince everyone that you know better: _You believe you deserved it._ ”

“I never once thought he meant me real harm,” Fenris said. Again, he sounded defeated, and again, it hurt Isabela’s heart to hear him. “I never once believed, no matter how horribly he hurt me, that he _meant it_.”

“You were young, and afraid. He’s the monster here, Fenris. I swear, if I get my hands on him, his balls are going on my mantle.”

For a wonder, Fenris chuckled. It was small, and edged with sadness, but it was better than nothing. Isabela wished that she could tell him he would be all right, that she would take care of him, that he had friends who loved him, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know if he would be all right, and it wasn’t up to her if he would be. 

Still, she curled herself tighter against Fenris’ back and kissed along his ear. He made a small noise in his throat – a _pleased_ noise --- and reached back to stroke her thigh. 

“I’m not sure it means much but--- I love you, Fenris.” The last four words were said in a rush, low and pressed into his ear. 

For a while Fenris said nothing. Isabela thought he mustn’t have heard her, though it seemed impossible. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Fenris whispered, “I am not sure it means much… But I love you too, Isabela.”

Isabela knew nothing had changed. Fenris would go on keeping that poison inside of himself, letting it fester and spread. But he would have to know that the moment he succumbed to it, the very instant he let it disease the last good corner of his heart, that Isabela would be there. 

Even if it served no purpose, Isabela swore she’d have Danarius’ heart on her blade. It was only a matter of time.

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Poison  
> Word Count: 2129  
> Rating: M  
> Warnings: Mention of abuse, rape, sexual assault, slavery  
> Fandom: Dragon Age 2  
> Pairing: Isabela/Fenris
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of past rape, abuse, sexual assault, slavery; read at your own risk.
> 
> Wooo, this was tough to write. I had to stop a few times and collect myself. These subjects are difficult for me to write about, and I don't do so lightly, even when it comes to fictional characters.  
> The consolation was that Fenris had Isabela. :)


End file.
